Spanish judges lacked impartiality in trials concerning Arnaldo Otegi and four other defendants from 2009 onwards.  Given what the world has seen the past year with the actions of the politicised judiciary over the independence movement in Catalonia, this judgement over the Basque Country comes as no surprise.

Below are excerpts from an upload by eldiario.com

ECHR 374 (2018)
06.11.2018

Applicants in trial related to banned group ETA had justified fears about judges’ lack of impartiality at trial
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Otegi Mondragon v. Spain (application no. 4184/15) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
It also held, by six votes to one, that the finding of a violation alone was sufficient just satisfaction in the case.
The case concerned the applicants’ complaint of bias on the part of judges who convicted them for being members of the ETA organisation.
The Court found in particular that the first applicant in the case had previously won an appeal against a conviction on different ETA-related charges because the presiding judge had shown a lack of impartiality, which had contaminated the whole panel in that case and had led to a retrial.
The same panel, including the judge who had presided in the earlier trial, had convicted all five applicants in a second set of proceedings on different charges a year later. The applicants had thus had objectively justified fears that these judges lacked impartiality in their case.
Principal facts
The applicants are Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón, born in 1958, Sonia Jacinto Garcia, born in 1977, Rafael Diez Usabiaga, born in 1956, Miren Zabaleta Telleria, born in 1981, and Arkaitz Rodriguez Torres, born in 1979. They are all Spanish nationals.
In March 2010 the first applicant was tried and convicted of the crime of encouraging terrorism and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment by a three-judge panel. He challenged the verdict, alleging that the presiding judge was biased. She had asked him during the proceedings if he condemned violence by ETA, the former armed Basque separatist organisation, and he had refused to reply. She had then said that she “already knew that he was not going to give an answer to that question”.
The Supreme Court overruled his conviction in February 2011 owing to a lack of impartiality on the part of the presiding judge. Another panel of the same first-instance court later acquitted Mr Otegi Mondragón.
All five applicants faced different criminal proceedings, which began in 2009, on ETA-related charges. The case was allocated to the same panel of the first-instance court which had originally convicted Mr Otegi Mondragón. He challenged the panel on the grounds of doubts about its impartiality, but a special chamber of the first-instance court dismissed his action.
The first-instance court convicted the applicants and gave them jail sentences of various lengths in September 2011. They lodged cassation appeals with the Supreme Court, the first and fifth applicants arguing in particular that the three-judge court panel had not been impartial.